Review: If Breathe seems a bit familiar to you, it’s probably because you’ve also seen The Theory of Everything. That film, about the life of Stephen Hawking, has similar themes and won star Eddie Redmayne an Oscar for his miraculous portrayal of a man whose body is failing him with a mind still sharp as a tack. I found that movie to be filled with good performances (co-star Felicty Jones was also Oscar-nominated for Hawking’s strong-willed wife) but lacking in overall emotional heft. While Breathe was always bound to draw comparisons, the surprising news is that it has the same memorable performances and the resonance The Theory of Everything lacked.

Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield, The Amazing Spider-Man) is a newlywed living with his pregnant wife Diana (Claire Foy) who contracts polio before he has turned 30. Paralyzed from the neck down and given mere months to live, Robin is resigned to his fate and unable to even look at his infant son. Not content with letting her husband fade away without a fight, Diana becomes his advocate and helps him leave the hospital ward and into their house in the English countryside.

Over the next several decades Robin will defy all expectations for those with his same affliction and become a rare voice for patients with conditions that left them unable to move or enjoy the world like everyone else. With advancements in technology that Robin played a part in helping to design, he is able to live a full life as a husband and a father. There are setbacks along the way and painful realties that have to be dealt with, instances that the film doesn’t totally gloss over but does treat them as speed bumps instead of potholes.

The first film directed by actor and famed motion-capture performer Andy Serkis (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Breathe looks wonderful and has grand performances as well. Garfield is charming throughout, even when he’s at his depressive worst, and he’s balanced nicely by Foy’s stalwart acting that maintains the dignity in both her character and Garfield’s.

It would be easy to let Breathe slip through your grasp and if you happen to miss it in theaters keep your eyes, ears, and heat open for it to pop up for home consumption.

Synopsis: In the 17th century two Jesuit priests face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor and to spread the gospel of Christianity.

Release Date: December 23, 2016

Thoughts: Much like Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street in 2013, Silence is a late breaking entry into the serious awards season discussion. Buzzed about for months (years if you count its overall development time) but as yet unseen, you never can really tell where a Scorsese flick will land in the eyes of critics but Silence looks compelling from the outset. Tackling the not super blockbuster themes of Christian oppression in a foreign land, it certainly has the visual hallmarks of a Scorsese film…including a lengthy run time. Stars Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man) and Adam Driver (Midnight Special) are stars continuing to rise and if you believe early odds, Liam Neeson (Non-Stop) could net a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work. We’ve got a few more weeks until Silence roars into view but count on this one to factor heavily in Oscar talk as the year concludes.

Review: With the arrival of this sequel to a 2012 reboot of the Spider-Man franchise, I’m still not at all sold that the world needed a re-imagining of the series so soon after the Sam Raimi trilogy of films released between 2002 and 2007. That being said, with a more forward moving plot and a collection of interesting characters, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 shows a marked improvement over the moody and overly emo blockbuster that arrived two years ago.

I find that the first entries in most superhero series are always tricky because it’s necessary to tell an origin story detailing how the central character (or characters) became the caped crusaders or men of steel we know them to be. Very few films have been successful in that regard, with 1978’s Superman being the gold standard of origin story films in my book.

The Amazing Spider-Man faced an uphill battle because in my mind it had to provide some rationale for why we needed to go back to square one with Peter Parker and his arachnid powers. It couldn’t make the case and though it made a truckload of cash for Sony/Marvel and had some impressive special effects, it was slow and housed an uninteresting villain that provided more yawns of boredom than gasps of excitement.

The sequel sets to out to right some of those wrongs but winds up overcompensating for its lackluster predecessor by stuffing so much into its first hour that audiences should buckle up for tonal whiplash. Returning director Marc Webb and screenwriters Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek, People Like Us), Roberto Orci (Star Trek: Into Darkness), Jeff Pinkner have great difficulty finding their bearings in the further adventures of Peter Parker and it’s not until well into the second act of their film that they get into the groove.

Opening with a whiz-bang flashback prologue that shows what really happened to Peter Parker’s parents (Campbell Scott & Embeth Davidtz) after they mysteriously left him with Aunt May (Sally Field, Lincoln) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) we jump right into a present that finds Peter (Andrew Garfield, less troubled here but still a tad whiny) and Gwen (Emma Stone, bringing valuable sparkle to her role) trying to navigate their relationship. Haunted by a promise he made to her dying father, Peter struggles with honoring his word and the love he feels for Gwen.

At the same time and in true sequel fashion, more time is spent on introducing several new villains to the mix than with our hero. The first foe Spidey has to deal with is Electro (Jamie Foxx, Annie) who starts the film as a dopey nerd desperate for attention that finds himself at the business end of a tub of electric eels. Foxx plays these early scenes as such a simpleton it borders on insulting stereotype though he does manage to find good but hardly electrifying moments when he gains his evil powers.

Also appearing is Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan, Lawless,Chronicle) who, after the death of his father (Chris Cooper, August: Osage County) returns to manage Oscorp, the mega company that employs Gwen and seems to be the breeding ground for villains out to take over the world. Dying due to a genetic disease, Harry needs Spider-Man’s blood to save himself…a problem made more difficult when he discovers that Spidey is really his childhood friend Peter Parker. DeHaan and Garfield are both talented young actors, so it’s guffaw inducing to watch scenes that have them spouting douche-y dialogue with numerous “bro” and “dude” interjections.

There’s something to be said when the most interesting character has no superpowers at all. Showing once again why she’s such a value add to any film, Field makes the most of her limited screen time by creating a character designed to be the voice of reason but delivering her material with an honesty that seems out of place in a film otherwise populated with some fairly generic dialogue and plot developments.

Composer Hans Zimmer replaced James Horner and the resulting score creates an excitement the original was lacking. Aided by super producer Pharrell, Zimmer’s score is just as impressive as the special effects which are deployed in a spectacular fashion whether it’s in Spidey’s high flying opening pursuit of a gang of thugs or a final showdown with Electro at a power plant. T

he final third of the film is pure action, leading to a series of endings (there are at least three) that signal change is ahead for Parker and company. With a third entry on its way in 2016, there’s little doubt Spidey will spin his web for years to come and if this sequel is any indication, the series will continue to improve.

Synopsis: Peter Parker runs the gauntlet as the mysterious company Oscorp sends a slew of supervillains up against him.

Release Date: May 2, 2014

Thoughts: While I wasn’t married to the idea of Tobey Maguire being the one and only Spider-Man forever and ever, I wasn’t convinced in 2012 that Sony needed to reboot our webbed hero with The Amazing Spider-Man. The film, while impressive visually, was missing that special spark that all lasting superhero films need to stand the test of time. History has shown that some franchise films need to work out some bugs at first so I’m going to put faith in director Marc Webb and the creative time that this second go ‘round with Spidey hits the bullseye. Adding rising star Dane DeHaan (Lawless, Chronicle, The Place Beyond the Pines), Paul Giamatti (Saving Mr. Banks), and Jamie Foxx (White House Down, Django Unchained) to the mix, this special New Year’s Eve preview is shorter and more compact than the longer trailer released a month ago, truly teasing the audience with images of the nasty baddies that await them when the film is released in May.

Synopsis: Peter Parker finds a clue that might help him understand why his parents disappeared when he was young. His path puts him on a collision course with Dr. Curt Connors, his father’s former partner.

Review: The popularity of the “remake” has now given birth to the “reboot”. Instead of simply remaking a movie from years past, now studios are moving to wipe the slate clean from existing franchises and start anew. It’s worked wonders for Warner Brothers and their Batman franchise and Sony is hoping they’ll have the same luck by kick starting a new Spider-Man series with a younger cast and fresh director. If the results are more serviceable than amazing, it’s not the fault of the people up on screen or the idea behind the whole movie — The Amazing Spider-Man works chemistry wise but not in terms of execution.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man came out in 2002 and was followed by sequels in 2004 and 2007. I enjoyed the first one, thought the second broke new exciting ground, and felt the third entry was a stinker – so I can see why Sony wanted to scrap the lot of ‘em and try a fresh take. The slant here is decidedly younger and I think that works for the overall feel of the Spider-Man universe.

Peter Parker (Garfield) is a put-upon, parentless, high-school angst machine and even though he has a supportive aunt and uncle (Field and Sheen…two perfect casting choices) and is catching the eye of Gwen Stacey (Stone, more on her later) he can’t get over feelings of abandonment and loss. A discovery of old lab papers from his scientist father and a trip to medical pioneer Oscorp brings Parker face to web with a spider whose bite changes his path forever.

The film has a lot of ground to cover, resulting in a movie that feels rushed in certain places and heavy in the middle. I enjoyed Parker’s discovery of his new powers and the fact that they made his costume/utilities more practical than the Raimi version. Here Parker is protected from sight while in costume but not from serious injury. The webs he tosses come from a clever device and the tall buildings he swings between are sometimes juuuust out of reach. That gives his crime stopping a bit of a realistic edge by showing us that he can just as easily hurt himself as a criminal.

Still…director Webb (was he hired for his name?) is inexperienced in the action film genre (his only previous film was the snappy rom-com 500 Days of Summer) and it does show. There’s a lot of focus on impressive visuals – several scenes of Spider-Man flying through the streets of New York are breathtaking and crafted extremely well. However…the movie starts to achieve a bit of a stop and start feeling about halfway in and that caused me to feel jarred in the process.

The problem is that what could have been an elevated superhero movie starts to be boiled down to a formulaic action flick with lots of brawn but no brain. It will deliver for those looking for action sequences of stature but won’t fill your appetite for believable scenes in between to tie it all together. The film can never really decide what its tone is. Is it more concerned with Parker struggling with vigilantism after crime affects his family, or is it about Parker and Gwen’s budding relationship? Should we be interested in the baddie wanting to turn NYC into scaly lizards or do we want Parker to find out the truth about his family history? A smarter director/script could have struck a balance between all four plot points but The Amazing Spider-Man ends up half-assing everything.

My biggest beef with the film is that it leaves so many questions unanswered. Large plot points and characters are introduced and then totally forgotten. It’s as if the filmmakers wanted to throw a lot of stuff on the table that they can weave back in in sequels. That doesn’t work in my book. Sequels need to build and expand the universe created by the first film…not clean up the mess the first film leaves. Parker’s main reason for becoming Spider-Man is forgotten as is Field who disappears for most of the movie until she’s needed for Wise Words with Aunt May near the end. I also felt the film didn’t follow through with the plot points it does focus on…and there seemed to be a choppy edit job done to reduce its running length as several scenes lead into others with large gaps of time in between. Again, I feel this was due to the film feeling the need to put way too much in…it’s like they combined two full length adventures into one but didn’t increase the running length.

With all of this exposition flying by, Webb needed to cast his leads with actors that can easily handle the material and do some heavy lifting on their own. If Webb doesn’t succeed in fashioning a perfect film, he’s absolutely cast the film with a smart eye. Brit Garfield (The Social Network) was an inspired choice for Parker and he brings out a vulnerability and charm that’s Parker to a T. His anger is fueled not just by his past but his present feelings of loneliness. It’s a nuanced performance that is a strong anchor to the picture and a good building block for future installments. He’s matched well with Stone’s forward thinking, funny, and delightful take on Gwen. Stone’s created Gwen as a female of today with her own opinions and motivations which meld well with Garfield’s questioning and shy Parker. The two actors have great chemistry and it’s no wonder they are involved off-screen as well. I did feel that Gwen was used as a bit of an obvious plot device in order to get Peter into Oscorp, but that’s just another example of the film being a bit lazy.

It is hard to describe a movie that zings by so fast as lazy but that’s just what some of it felt like. As the film chugs toward its non-ending I saw a lot of instances of the screenwriters just creating exit strategies of Spider-Man because they could. At one point The Lizard (Ifans – a weak villain) turns several NYC cops into Lizard henchman…yet we never see them transform…so what’s the point in showing this?

I’d now like to turn your attention to one of my favorite “howler” moments of the 2012 Summer. Near the end Spider-Man is injured and needs to make it across several city blocks. Pay attention to what a voice-over narration from a news anchor says about him. Then try not to laugh as the construction works of NYC (led by an 80’s star that Spider-Man conveniently helped out earlier in the film) bond together to help him get to his destination. It’s all pretty ridiculous.

The effects are spectacular but are only slightly enhanced by 3D and IMAX. It’s not necessary to see the film with these added expenses though if you wanted to submerse yourself into the movie it might be a nice distraction from the weak plot and pacing. James Horner contributes a nicely heroic score that plays nicely with a few impressive flying sequences.

I’m sure there will be a sequel in this new Spider-Man reboot and I’m hoping that a more experienced director is brought on and a tight script is developed. Sony has the pieces in place to make a smart and exciting franchise take off…they just need to give it a better game master to let it fly.